Apple do this nice service when you order directly from the Apple Online Store where you can get an engraving on the back of your iPod, iPad etc for free. It looks really nice, and it adds about a day onto the delivery time. What could go wrong? Well, let me tell you a story…
I recently bought an iPad Mini for my girlfriend’s birthday. Got her a nice designer case for it, a data nanosim and a cute little private joke engraved on the back (along with her e-mail address – I’m still fairly practical). She loved it, and started “moving in” straight away. The next day though, it was failing already – the display backlight wouldn’t light and in just the right light you could make out a very rough-looking display. So we wiped it clean (iTunes could still talk to it) and went to the Apple store.
First of all, one does not simply walk into an Apple store. Obviously you need an appointment with a “genius” to actually get customer service. Although it turns out if you stand in the middle of a ipad-buying crowd with a dead unit and a grumpy face, someone will help. Except they can’t, because it’s personalised, so it has to go back to the mothership.
The one super-impressive part of the customer service experiences comes next – Apple’s phone system. If you call from the phone that they have recorded against your name for your account, the phone system just says (literally) “Oh, is it about that ipad?”, and everyone knows what is going on. Neat!
They send out a courier box for the unit, and you send it back. Then they send out the repaired one. Unlike the Apple store itself, they use TNT, and they don’t let you know the tracking number for the repaired item.
So my repair is turned around in a day or so, and then the item is just marked “shipped” on the Apple site. I wait, and wait some more. After speaking to Apple customer service, they want to wait until TNT have had their “allow for delivery” time, which is something like 10 days. I did get the tracking number from them though, so I could play along at home – it just says “out for delivery” for several days. Eventually TNT admit that actually they’ve lost it, so Apple organise another replacement, with personalisation. They confirm the details, and get it sent. It arrives a few days later, and it’s the wrong spec. We go back two steps and repeat one more time. Finally, 6 weeks after her birthday, we have a working unit!
In their defence, I did get personal contact details from several folks at Apple who followed the case through for me, but it shouldn’t really come to that. Obviously, if I’d have just bought the unit without personalisation, I could have had it swapped out at the local physical store, and been done in a day or two.
Think twice before engraving!